Manning

I learned a valuable lesson today.

Yesterday I spent the entire day practicing the mana guided mutations that Cara showed me. I managed to make a bush whose berries adapted the same numbing quality that a few of her mushrooms had which encouraged me to experiment even more.

I'd checked around my breeding quarries and found that there was a litter of hoglets due the following day. I knew that it when you were forcing mutations the best time to do it was as young as possible or during evolution. I spent the rest of that day and night saving up mana in my core to play with when the hoglets were born.

Shortly before the sun rose I decided that I'd ask Cara to observe and give me tips during the process, after all she'd been so nice recently. I was overjoyed at the recent turn in her attitude and encouraged to try and involve her. When I investigated her dungeon however, I decided she must have her hands full. There was a disgusting creature crawling around her second floor.

It looked like a rotten, shriveled fig to me. A fig with very sharp teeth, and a ravenous appetite. I watched it as it scraped every bit of mushroom it could find on a wall straight into its mouth before pressing it’s face to the ground and licking the floor while it scrambled around. I was enthralled by the hideous sight for a few minutes.

"What in the void is that Cara?"

"Oh! Manning hello, good morning. I have no clue, but I am pretty sure that I figured out why I was having trouble expanding. It came crawling out of the side passage I told you about. It seems to be a very low class of sapient."

"Oi, boy! Thank ye very much for ta Mushrooms. Ye have no idea how happy ye made this lil fairy!" Brick's voice startled me something good. To be honest I forgot he even lived down here as he chooses not to speak to me very often. He was strangely reclusive but that matched what Ash told me most brownies were like. “Let me sample any other tubers ye might find, ye?"

"Of course, Brick. Anyways good luck Cara, keep me updated please."

I was more than happy to pull my consciousness back above ground and away from that thing. It was one of the most disgusting, unnatural creatures I'd ever seen.

A few hours later it was time for the birthing.

"Something's wrong Manning." I'd asked Ash to be there since Cara was preoccupied, and right now she looked very worried.

The mother hedgehog was squealing in distress while she gave birth. Soon I understood why.

Instead of the procession of baby hoglets that were usually squeezed into the world, a pool of blood and too-still babies came pouring out.

The grief I felt from the den mother was overwhelming and saddened me too.

"Well, that’s extremely unfortunate. What happened Ash?"

"I don't know. It could be that something went wrong in the pregnancy, or it could be because of the incest which I warned you about."

When we'd first started populating our woods, Ash told me that I should manually spawn either the father or the mother of each batch to prevent inbreeding to avoid mutations. At the time I thought mutations were exactly what we needed to diversify our species and when compounded with how expensive it was to create a creature directly, I'd decided to put it off. I could see my mistake now.

I decided then to alternate between spawning new female and male hedgehogs each generation, to avoid something like this happening again.

As I was breaking down the stillborn hoglets I saw one of them squirm. A single hoglet had survived the pregnancy, but he was not very well off. I put off cleanup and started concentrating mana into him, not to mutate him as I'd first intended but to save his life.

The baby was deformed, with each of its legs a different length than the other and eyes far too large for its face. Internally its heart was far too large and its lungs far too small on top of something seemingly lodged into the top of his brainstem.

Several hours passed while I concentrated on assisting it's breathing, growing its limbs back to usually and overall growing the poor hoglet. I decided I would push it into adult hood as fast as possible, concentrating on expanding its lung capacity and trying to restrict the size of its heart growing to a regular level.

By the time I'd finished, I had a very strange looking hedgehog. It was slightly smaller than other fully-grown males that I'd created, with weird color patterns in its fur of alternating blacks, browns, and greys. I'd managed to get his legs a uniform length, but they were much longer than other hedgehogs. Not only were its legs longer than other hedgehogs, but its feet ended in with five long, tapered fingers instead of the regular paws of its brothers. On top of this I was unable to modify his claws to be the size I wanted my drones to have, they were only 5 cm or so long, but they were wickedly sharp and retracted into its paws when they weren't in use.

The most shocking change however, was that spec in his brainstem. It had absorbed mana as I grew him and enlarged in size. At the base of his brain stem was now a very strange looking transparent gemstone, filled with a swirling green and brown energy.

"A beastcore. Manning you're describing a beastcore, but that isn't where they are supposed to be."

"What is a beastcore?"

Ash contemplated her words for a little while before responding. I watched the wind slowly blowing through her hair as she stared into the sky in thought.

"A beastcore is where sapients got their idea of soul gems. It's a naturally formed mineral that usually functions as a mana pool for non-sapient races. Effectively it absorbs mana and life energies for the beast that it is inside and occasionally allows for magic development. It's usually located in the chest however, and I'm worried about this one pressing against the hedgehog's brain."

We looked over at the newly made adult in question, and I understood her concern. He had wandered over to a fallen coppernut and was currently trying to crack it open with its teeth. I gave it a command to drop the coppernut, there was no way it would crack through the metal shell and I didn't want him to waste his time.

The hedgehog looked in the direction of my core and tilted its head to the side. It then proceeded to start chewing the nut again. Great, it was too stupid to even understand me.

"I think that we may need to just put it down, it seems to be an invalid. It doesn't know how to follow my commands at all."

"No!" Ash sprinted down our hill to scoop up the hedgehog. He went very still when her hands wrapped around him and dropped the coppernut eyes wide. She hugged him to her chest with tear-filled eyes. "Don't you dare Manning. This is our enchanted forest, not a murderous dungeon, remember? It's okay to have creatures whose sole intent isn't killing everything. Besides he's the only survivor of his entire litter, and he’s so cute. Please do not hurt him." She was practically crying at this point.

"Okay, I'm sorry Ash you are right. We'll leave him alone to do his thing."

I was unsure what good it would do to allow the creature to bumble around, but I conceded the point to keep Ash happy. When I checked my evolutionary trees however, I found that the extensive changes I'd guided him through had changed his entire being. It was no longer a hedgehog, or so far removed that it would be a travesty to call it such. 

I guessed this to mean I'd created a new species. I'd already decided in the past to allow the sapients to name my creations, and I'd stick to my decision for now. What good would it do me to name them, just to have every visitor calling them something else anyways?

Speaking of which, I felt an itching sensation. Two sapients were approaching the edge of my domain along the northern side of the forest, near the river. They did not cross the river but lingered for a moment, before walking away.

I'd better investigate what was going on up there.